


Let The Revolution Take Its Toll

by philsbasket



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 06:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4615437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philsbasket/pseuds/philsbasket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the London riots in 2011 the UK government brought it a set of new laws against young people under the age of 21. Young people are no longer allowed to be out after 8pm, they aren’t allowed to congregate in groups, the media they are allowed to consume is heavily censored, contact is forbidden and relationships are outlawed. Ten years later 17 year old Dan moves to a town just outside of London where he meets Phil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I've never written fic before and idk if this is good but I quite like the idea I came up with and I just needed it written so I just did it lmao  
> This is going to be chaptered and possibly quite long so please stick with me and please leave feedback!  
> it's written from Phil's pov  
> I didn’t have a beta and I didn’t really proofread it so sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes most of this was written at like 1am  
> also this fic is on indefinite hiatus idk if i'll ever finish it maybe one day but i'd probably rewrite it from the beginning

I was only 7 when it happened but I remember it well enough. It was August 2011 and I watched from my bedroom as the chaos reigned below. The nights full of hooded teenagers, throwing bricks into shop windows, setting cars aflame, moving in packs and grabbing whatever they could. The mornings after were the worst. My mum would clutch my hand and usher me along the streets to my primary school, our shoes crunching on the broken glass that littered the pavements. I was so young and didn’t quite understand what was going on or what it might mean for my future.  All I remember thinking was that it smelled like the morning after bonfire night, when all the smoke has settled and sits almost like a fog. I said this to my mum. We passed by the empty shell of a burnt out double decker bus. She didn’t reply.

After the rioting my parents decided that maybe London wasn’t the best place to bring up a child and moved us slightly north into a small town in Hertfordshire. Close enough to the city so my dad could commute in every day, far enough out that we were surrounded by fields and trees rather than concrete and the grey urban sprawl of where I grew up in Hackney.

Some said the riots were the result of a youth with no voice, shouting for someone to listen to what they had to say. Others said they were the product of a generation that spent all their time playing violent video games, that the teenagers were rioting simply for the fun of it.  The government said that youth crime had gotten out of hand, that something had to be done about it to prevent anything on the scale of the 2011 riots from happening ever again. In the September of that year the UK government brought in The New Youth Laws, these would govern every young person in The UK under the age of 21.

> **The New Youth Laws. 2011  
> ** -A curfew is in place for all young people unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. Curfew hours are from 8pm to 6am.  
>  -The voting age is being raised from 18 to 21.  
>  -The legal drinking age is being raised from 18 to 21.  
>  -Young people may not congregate in groups larger than 2 in public and 5 in private, with the exception of schools, family groups and approved events e.g; weddings, funerals etc.  
>  -To prevent the spread of sexual diseases and teen pregnancy, contact between young people is forbidden. Romantic relationships of any kind are outlawed.  
>  -All films, television, books, music and video games depicting excessive violence, gore, drug use, sex or alcohol are to be automatically revised with the certificate NC-21

After the rioting my parents had decided that maybe London wasn’t the best place to bring up a child and moved slightly north into a small town in Hertfordshire.That was 10 years ago. At first the generations clashed over the new laws. Young people argued that the voting age was changed to stop them from having any sort of voice in the matter, which was never actually denied by the government. Honestly, I agree that the laws are extreme, only a very small percentage of young people were even involved in the rioting, but as someone who grew up with the laws for the most part, I understand that they are there to protect us. People say they fear walking the streets at night less now, they feel safer apparently, and that has to be a good thing right?

* * *

“Phil!” I hear my mum shouting to me from the other side of my door “Come on love it’s time to get up or you’re gonna be late for school”

I blearily grab my glasses from my bedside table and blink up at my alarm clock.

“oh shii—”

I’d managed to mess my sleep schedule up during the summer holidays, pretty regularly staying up on the internet until the morning and then sleeping till 2 or 3pm. I had set 2 alarms to make sure I woke up on time for school and managed to sleep through both of them. Typical. I rush to the bathroom to shower and brush my teeth.

Normally I’d put in extra effort to look presentable on the first day of school but I was already over half an hour behind schedule. I quickly pulled on my uniform, a light blue shirt and black trousers,  and sloppily ran my hair straighteners through my fringe. I was actually kind of looking forward to the new school year, due to the rules on congregating me, Chris and PJ didn’t really have anywhere to go during the summer than to each others houses, so I was excited to see more than 2 other kids my own age for once. Plus I was starting Year 12- the first year of Sixth Form and for the first time we were allowed off campus for lunch, alone or in pairs of course.

I rushed down the stairs and into the kitchen, smiling at my mum

“Morning!”

“Good morning love” she returned straightening the collar of my shirt. “Where’s your tie? Come on you’re already late”

I sighed, turning back up the stairs.

“I’ve got to get to work but there’s some toast there for you and I’ve put some money on the side for your lunch”

“Cheers mum see ya later”

I ran up the stairs two at a time to get my tie, I didn’t really have time to put it on so I just shoved it into my satchel, ran back down the stairs, shoving the money my mum had left into my pocket and grabbing the toast out of the toaster before leaving the house. I walk to school by myself, which is okay as it’s only a 5 minute walk. Chris lives in one of the outlying villages and gets his dad to drive him in on the way to work, PJ lives on the other side of the school and comes in from the opposite direction. We would usually meet in our form room but this year we had been assigned different tutors so we arranged to meet just inside the gates. I checked the time on my phone and realised that through all my rushing I’d actually managed to make it to school on time.

“Philip Lester. Here. Now.”

The deputy head, Mr Malone, was pointing behind him to where a few other students were busy fluffing with their uniforms. A boy around my age was tucking in his shirt, he caught my eye and smiled. I’d never seen him before, which was odd. The school was quite small, with only around 800 students, and after being there for 5 years I knew pretty much everybody who went there by sight, even if not by name.  This boy was prettier than anybody I’d ever seen here before, although we’re not really supposed to think things like that anymore.

“Philip are you listening to me?”

The boy ducked his head, smiling slightly. A hint of blush detectable only slightly on his tanned skin. Had I been staring?

“Your tie Mr Lester?” Mr Malone asked in an almost sarcastic tone, gesturing to my collar.

“Sorry sir, I have it right here” I said, patting my bag. “I was running late this morning and I forgot to put it on”

“I’ll let you off this time Philip, as it’s the first day of term. Put it on now please, next time it will be a detention”

“Yes sir” I looked at the floor I hated being in trouble and usually avoided it at all costs, I tied my tie quickly and started off towards my form room. PJ and Chris had already left which I had expected, obviously they didn’t want to be late on the first day. As I was leaving I could hear Mr Malone speaking to the pretty boy I’d seen earlier-

“As you are new here you might not be familiar with our uniform rules, let me educate you on them…”

* * *

As I slipped into my form room I was relieved to see that my new form tutor, Miss Grant, hadn’t arrived yet. The tables were arranged in seats of two and I took an empty one by the window, seeing as I didn’t really speak to anybody in my new form group. A few minutes later Miss Grant bustled in holding the register and a cup of coffee.

“Right” She exclaimed, clapping her hands together once after putting her things down on her desk. “Good morning everyone, some of you already know me, My name is Miss Grant and I’m going to be your form tutor for the next two years.”

I had had Miss Grant as a teacher before, she was relatively young and she was very friendly. She had taught me History in years 9 and 10 and I had done relatively well, so I was happy to have her as my form tutor for the next two years of sixth form.

“Okay I’ll just take the register and then I can explain what’s going to be happening this morning… Kelly Abbot?”

It was at this point that the door opened and the boy I’d seen outside the gates tentatively wandered in, pausing after shutting the door behind him. All of the 30 or so eyes in the room turned to stare at him, some people whispered although I couldn’t make out what they were saying”

“Uh, sorry I’m late miss, I think I’m in the right room? My name is Dan Howell”

Dan seemed visibly uncomfortable to have everybody staring at him, but Miss Grant just smiled.

“Dan Howell yes, welcome, I’m Miss Grant. I see you’re joining us as a new student. Would you like to introduce yourself to the class?”

It was pretty obvious that Dan did not want to introduce himself to the class.

“Uhh, yeah? Um, My name is Dan, my family just moved here from Reading. I uh, I like music I guess and films and stuff like that?

“Great Dan, we’re thrilled to have you here, take a seat there next to Phil” Miss Grant said, gesturing to the empty seat beside me.

“Phil, would you keep Dan company for a few days? Show him where everything is?” She turned her attention to me and smiled encouragingly, nodding.

Shit. No. No no no. I can’t talk to Dan, I’d already made a fool out of myself in front of him this morning he probably thinks I’m really weird.

“Yeah I guess so.” I couldn’t say no to Miss Grant, her eyes were too kind and she was looking at me too way too warmly for me to say no.

I tried my best not to blush as he sat down next to me and swung his backpack under the table, but I could feel the heat radiating from my face. I prayed that Dan wouldn’t notice but that was pretty unlikely seeing as I’m so pale.

“Hey Phil” He smirked and I noticed a twinkle behind his deep brown eyes. Yep, he definitely saw me staring at him this morning. He turned to face the font as Miss Grant continued with the register. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: okay so that was pretty short and I’ll try to get the next one up at least kind of soon but I hope anyone who read that actually liked it I think the idea is quite good and idk if anyone has done anything similar before but I haven’t seen it but yeah please leave feedback and/or kudos if you liked it it will be very very much appreciated!!!


	2. Chapter 2

After Miss Grant had finished taking the register she began handing out laminated pieces of paper.

“These are your class schedules for this year, you will find that you have a lot more free periods now that you are Sixth formers. Use them wisely. Try not to sit around playing cards all day and actually do some studying, you will thank yourself later in the term.”

She handed Phil his schedule, she was right, he had almost as many free periods as he did lessons.

“I will leave the door to this room unlocked so you can come here and study in your free periods, alternatively you can use any free computer room or the library if you want to. As Sixth formers you are allowed to use the common room during your free periods and break and lunch times and you will be permitted to leave the premises at lunch, provided you are back in time for afternoon registration. You may leave the school early after afternoon registration if, and only if you have no further lessons that day. Please don’t forget that although you are allowed to congregate in groups inside of the school as soon as you set foot outside of those gates the usual laws follow. You will be prosecuted if found to be on the streets in a group larger than two. Last year only 16 students in the school were arrested and this year we want that number to be even lower. Okay, I think that’s it. Any questions? No? Great, you may talk quietly until the end of form time.”

She walked over to Dan and Phil’s desk, handing Dan a blue piece of paper.

“This is a map of the school. It has all the room numbers on it so you should be able to find your lessons pretty easily. This isn’t a big school and you hopefully you’ll be able to find your way around well enough after a few days, but I know those first few days at a new school can be tough right?” She chuckled “Any problems come straight to me, that’s what I’m here for” She smiled and went back to her desk.

“No offence” Dan mumbled quietly, looking up from the map and glancing at me “But your school is kind of shit” a small smile playing on his face. His voice was warm, not particularly deep, but soft and soothing, even when he swore.

“Why is that then?” I knew he didn’t mean it maliciously but I kind of wanted to play along, I mean, I’m not exactly the nerdiest kid in the place but personally I quite like my school, as schools go it’s alright. I guess it’s kind of small but what does he expect, it’s a small town.

“Just is. I almost got a detention earlier for not having my shirt tucked in. Don’t you think that’s a bit over the top?”

Oh right. He saw me getting pulled up for uniform this morning and now he thinks that I’m a “Bad Boy”. Like I said, I’m not a rule breaker, I like to keep my head down and not cause any trouble.

“I mean, what does it matter that my shirt isn’t tucked in, really? Is it going to affect my learning? Does it hurt anybody?” he continued, ruffling his fringe and smoothing it back into place. First impressions aside, Dan actually seemed quite confident now that he was talking with me one on one rather than to the whole class.

“I don’t know, I find it’s easier to just do what I’m told most of the time” I replied. He looked me right in the eyes for a few seconds before smiling and grabbing my class schedule.

“Can I look?” He waved the laminated piece of paper between his fingers and smirked at me.

“Uh, yeah sure?”

Dan examined my schedule for a few seconds “Oh cool! Check this out” He placed both our schedules down on the table side by side. “We have loads of free periods together and we’re in the same English class”

“Awesome” I nodded enthusiastically at him as he grinned at me. I was genuinely pleased, even though I knew somewhere deep down that eventually he would find cooler people to hang out with than me and my friends. Dan was attractive, that was obvious, even if that didn’t really mean much anymore in terms of relationships it still meant that people would gravitate towards him. He could easily be popular, if he wanted.

“And hey look” He pointed to Monday period one on the schedule. “We both have a free period first thing, maybe you could show me around the school after form?” He looked away slightly “I mean, if you wanted to obviously”

“Yeah course” Honestly I wanted to help him out and show him around, it’s tough being new, my first days of primary school after we moved from Hackney were hell.

His smile lit up his entire face, dimples appearing in his cheeks, and I felt a short sharp pang of something beneath my ribcage. That was bad. I pushed that feeling away as quickly as I could.

We chatted for the last 10 minutes or so of the form period. Conversation came easily, he told me about his dog and the bands he liked, I told him about my favourite films and tv shows, we discovered that we had a very similar taste.  Eventually we got onto the subject of his old school and Reading, he looked distant when he spoke about it. I asked him why they had to leave. Dan broke my gaze quickly.

“Uh, my dad got a new job, in London”

“Oh. Right. That sucks”

I couldn’t tell if he was lying or if he was just sad about having to leave the town that he grew up in, either way I didn’t want to push it. Soon after that the bell rang to signal the end of form time.

* * *

I walked with Dan through the almost empty corridors of the school, pointing to doorways and telling him what was inside each one.

“So there’s 5 blocks of classrooms, the north and south blocks, maths block, science block and the languages block” I explained as Dan nodded along.

“What A levels are you doing?” I asked.

“I kind of want to be a lawyer, I like debating with people I guess, I like it when things are fair. So I picked Law, Psych, English and then Geography, just cause I like travelling and that.”

“Ah right,  okay that’s really cool actually, that you know what you want to do already and stuff, all those classes are in the north block so I don’t really need to show you round any of the others. The north block is the one we are in now. I’ll show you the cafeteria and the common room and stuff though if you want?”

“Yeah alright, that would be cool”

I led him through a paved courtyard and through the doors into the lobby of another building.

“So the cafeteria is there” I pointed to my right “although sixth formers usually either go out for lunch or bring their own.”

“That’s the library” I gestured to my left “and then the assembly hall is out those doors and across the courtyard there, although we don’t go in there much apart from for exams and things like that.

“Alright cool” Dan smiled at me encouragingly. I got the feeling that he still didn’t think very much of his new school. I must admit it must have looked quite bleak looking to somebody seeing it for the first time. All whitewashed concrete walls which had long since turned grey and blue linoleum floors that were peeling at the edges of the room.. “The common room?” he ventured.

“Yeah that’s just up here” I started up the stairs that led to the sixth form common room. I was quite excited to hang out in there actually, we had never really been allowed in there when we were younger. There were a few beanbags dotted around and a small TV on the wall, old busted up sofas pressed around the edges of the room. Posters covered the walls, age appropriate things of course. Pop stars, a few rock bands, movies. There were a few kids in here already, playing games on their tablets or reading. It was quite nice actually, for somewhere in a school.

“This is… Awesome” Breathed Dan.

“Really?” I asked, I mean, it was quite cool having somewhere in school just to relax and chill out when you’d had enough of studying, but it wasn’t anything that special.

“Yeah no it’s great” He said, flopping down on one of the sofas and prodding a bit of stuffing that was poking out one of the armrests. “I love it, it’s cosy” He gave me that same blinding grin as he gave me earlier. “Can we hang out in here until next lesson?”

* * *

Shortly after than, Chris and PJ wander into the common room, arguing about something or other.

“What are you even talking about Chris? How could being in a locked room with a fan kill you? It just blows the air around?”

“I’m not making it up! It’s something to do with the carbon dioxide and that, I don’t know the exact science. Hey Phil, who’s your new friend? Are you replacing us?”

”Haha, of course not, this is Dan, he just moved into town”

Dan seemed a little shy, he smiled at Chris and PJ and did a little half wave. It was absolutely adorable and I couldn’t stop myself from smirking a little bit.  

We chatted amongst ourselves until the end of the period, Dan eventually came out of his shell and joined in more and more with the conversation, laughing and joking with me and Chris and PJ. He fit in easily, sharing a lot of the same interests and the same sense of humour. I found myself hoping more and more that he wouldn’t leave us for a cooler, more popular set of friends.

Dan had Law for 2nd period. I had Media studies. When the bell rang Dan looked at me for a few seconds, before biting his lip.

“Um.. Phil? Do you think I could get your phone number? Just so I can text you if I get lost or anything.”

“Yeah, course, hang on”

I ripped a shred of paper out of one of my notebooks and scribbled my number onto it quickly. My handwriting wasn’t great at the best of times, it was borderline illegible but I didn’t have time to rewrite it. I held it out for Dan to take.

“Thanks Phil” he smiled. He reached out to take the scrap of paper and his fingers brushed with mine for a split second, his touch so light it was barely detectable, before he turned and darted down the stairs. The breath hitched in my throat as my eyes scanned the room to see if anybody had saw. Nobody looked particularly shocked. There were only around a dozen or so other teenagers in the room and they all looked busy enough, packing up their things and trying to get to their next lessons. I doubt anybody saw. But what was Dan thinking? I mean, it had to be an accident right? If they caught you touching that was pretty much an immediate suspension, depending on the severity of the situation sometimes people even informed the police. My hands tingled where we had made contact, a bit like pins and needles, and I felt light-headed. I kept thinking about how wrong it was, the contact. If anybody had seen we would have been in huge trouble. I managed to convince myself that it was an accident, but even then I couldn’t stop thinking about it all the way through Media studies. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N If you actually took the time to read this thank you so much and I’m sorry it’s kind of awful i have practically no idea what i’m doing. Please leave feedback and/or kudos if you liked it!


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